The present disclosure relates to a cleaning apparatus designed to clean a wide array of computer peripheral devices, e.g., printers, smart card readers, magnetic readers and the like. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a universal cleaning card-like apparatus which has a dual cleaning function: 1) to clean and polish the rollers and reading, writing or scan heads (hereinafter “r/w/s heads”) of printers, facsimile machines, copiers, photo and optic sensors, chips, internal optics, smart card readers, smart chips, bar code encoders and decoders, magnetic readers, scanners and/or the like; and 2) to remove lint, dust, paper dust, magnetic oxides, contaminants and/or other residue from the r/w/s heads, feed or follower rollers/bars disposed along the paper (or r/w/s head path).
Heretofore, an alcohol-based solution, e.g., isopropyl alcohol, has been used with some success to clean the heads of the above-mentioned or similar such devices. However, it is known that alcohol-based solutions can detrimentally affect the life of the more sensitive, internal working components of these devices, e.g., repeated cleaning with an alcohol-based solution can affect the elasticity of the feed or follower rollers/bars and/or r/w/s/heads. Moreover, it is also known that bulk shipping of alcohol-based solutions can often be difficult and may require special permits and/or less than efficient shipping methods due to certain countries classifying alcohol-based solutions as hazardous or unsafe substances.
Other known cleaning devices employ abrasives on one or both sides of the cleaning sheet to remove contaminants. However, it is known that these abrasives may cause unnecessary wear of the feed or follower rollers and/or the r/w/s heads.
Thus, there exists a need for a new, simple, yet effective, cleaning apparatus and method according to same for both cleaning the roller and heads of certain electronic equipment and removing excess residue from the rollers and heads without compromising the integrity of the internal working components of the equipment.